A Young Tempest
by lillpon
Summary: Killian Jones raises his daughter and learns things along with her.


The nurses tell him she's a quiet one. She wakes only when she needs to and falls asleep right after she's fed. Sometimes she stays awake for a little while and he forces himself to look at her.

He's lucky to have found a couple of wet nurses around the place. A secluded little seaside village as it is, there are no orphanages and no doctors around.

It's here that fate decided he impregnated a woman.

Not that he doubts there have been more - but it's the first he meets. Or rather, met, as she ran away soon after giving birth.

The small baby nestles in his chest, her breaths even and slow, making her belly go up and down.

He can't be a father. He doesn't want to and, really, he never had the best examples to begin with. It took him long to accept that though Liam had done his absolute best to raise him, he'd left his little brother with many issues he'd tried to deal on his own, most of them unsuccessfully.

Yet the baby is too young and needs too constant a feeding for him to take her away to a better place. And if he leaves her, literally no-one around will care enough to help her grow up. So he lets his men roam the seas for gold and loot and come back a few months later.

By then, he's absolutely gone.

She grows to be a small tempest in his life. Once the nurses start giving her pap, she almost refuses any milk and cries when Killian leaves her side. He realizes he doesn't want to leave her.

He takes her to his little seaside house, still paying the almost reluctant nurses to come and feed her.

He takes her for careful dips in the water. He shows her the stars and she listens. He makes her pap with fresh bread and mashed raisins.

He sings to her, and he wants to punch himself when she starts laughing with _The Good Ship Venus._

Then his men come, and the baby is old enough to stand a few days ashore until they reach a town with a good orphanage.

But he looks at her, remembers her laugh, her bright, unsettled eyes and the way she loves splashing in the warm waves.

"It's not that long, sir. You don't need to retire."

Aye, he does.

The most vile of his men leave, the ones willing to stop the violence stay. They become traders, and though the pay is significantly less, they stay with him and respect it's better for the Captain's child.

He gives up on rum. It takes a little while to completely stop, but before her first birthday he's managed to stay clean for good.

Her fiery attitude keeps up. Any nurse gives up on her after she turns one. She likes raisins, not berries, and chamomile, not goat's milk, mixed with honey.

She likes it when he sings to her. She smiles with _Randy-Dandy-Oh_ and _The Parting Glass_ and pouts with _Drunken Sailor_ and _Santy Anno_. Sometimes he attempts singing the melody of _The Good Ship Venus_ , but she only laughs with the right lyrics.

Or perhaps it's the faces he makes. She imitates his faces, grabs his hand and hook and claps them together on the rhythm while he sings, her smile making his heart grow.

She walks on the deck, her little feet leaving tiny footprints on the wet wood next to his own. She turns to him, smiles and calls him Dada. He can't remember when was the last time he was truly happy before that. It surely has been centuries.

She gets ill and he almost dies from the worry. He stays by her small bed all night. She's hot with fever and cries in her sleep, and all he can do is hold her close to his bare chest as she shivers.

She recovers and Hook realizes it's the first time in probably his whole centuries-long life he's been that afraid. A few days later, to her it's like nothing happened.

She makes the shape of his hook with her hand. "Dada," she says.

He points to his chest. "Dada," he replies. "Killian."

"Kiyian."

He loves her, and with taking care of her he learns to love himself.

He's strong enough to protect her, to stay with her, to take care of her.

To not leave her, to not die on her, to not bloody _sell_ her.

He's strong enough to give up on rum for her.

He learns that he, once a thieving and always a one-handed pirate, can be looked at with innocent and pure love from a child. His child. His precious, unstoppable tempest.

He teaches her about the stars, how to swim, how to sail. He shows her the world.

One day at a market, she points at a chess set. It's elegant and expensive, probably more than they could afford and he hasn't played in years, but her ear-piercing wails don't stop until he buys it for her.

She tries to play a few times but gives up. She prefers swimming, and singing, and playing catch with the crew.

He unburies his obsolete copy of the Odyssey and reads to her in Greek. At first she looks at him with wide eyes, listening to a foreign language for the first time but eventually mimics his accent.

She finds Milah's portrait. "Mama?" she says and his heart breaks.

It's after he teaches her to read - both English and Greek - that she picks up the chess set again. She knows blacks play second but always chooses them. He always lets her win, otherwise her wails keep up long into the night. Her triumphant smile at her "victory" is always worth it.

He makes sure Smee and Starkey let her win as well.

She tries to draw. The Roger's sails, the horizon, the clouds.

She gets better at chess and one time he's mortified to realize she's beat him without him letting her. It quickly turns to pride as she gives him the satisfied smirk he knows she picked up from him a long time ago.

She likes when he's being funny. He makes funny voices, funny faces, and she laughs so hard she pees herself.

He always gets as worried as the first time every time she gets sick. But she recovers and is ready for the next adventure.

She grows to be a foul-mouthed eight year old with callouses she willingly allowed her hands to grow.

The crew loves her too, playing with her with wooden sticks and teaching her how to defend herself.

He knows she'll never need it, but she smiles when she dodges a parry. She says she can't wait to play with real swords.

"Checkmate," she says proudly and Killian throws his king to the side. "And you didn't help me this time."

She smiles, jumps from her seat and kisses his cheek before she runs out to let Smee take her to the crow's nest to watch the sun set.

He rubs his itching stump and walks to the cupboard next to the door. He opens it and looks at Baelfire's cutlass. He caught word of his heroic demise some time ago. At least he knew he had a happy family before he went to meet his mother.

His daughter's birthday is in a few weeks. Perhaps, before he's ready to pass Milah's sword to her, he can give her the next best thing to finally help her turn into the fighter she was always meant to be.

He buries the cutlass deep behind the wool coats again.

A few weeks later, he instead unburies the rum and drinks for the first time in years.

He needs the burn. To help minimize the fear of failure, the pain coming in advance.

She was taken away and she needs him, and he'll be damned if he doesn't turn the world upside down to find her and get her back.


End file.
